races, as there the word of their consul is respected, and foreigners
can no longer be insulted with impunity. So far has Europe brought
matters with the old fox, Mehemet Ali. Still the Frank here must pay
considerable regard to public appearances; for instance, were he to
enter any mosque of more than common sanctity without the escort of a
soldier, he would be cudgelled; or, during the great procession which
carries the curtain to Mecca, were any man in European dress to show
himself in the streets, he would run a risk of being fearfully ill used.
If a Mussulman female be found with a Frank, she is at once seized on,
bastinadoed, and cast into prison,—nay, sometimes into the Nile. In
general, the European is judged by his own laws; and this is an
inestimable privilege, otherwise all Franks would fall a prey to the
caprice of Turkish justice. Only for three crimes is a Frank handed over
to be punished by Turkish law, _i.e._ is to be at once hanged or
strangled,—viz., for breaking into a harem, for coining false money, or
for intentionally murdering a Mussulman.
Unfortunately, in Egypt as in the free states, the foreigners there are
the raff of their nations, for though one must not fancy that all Franks
here are good-for-nothing rascals, still such is the character of most
of them. It is almost incredible the villanous deeds most of these have
committed in their own country and other lands, and in Egypt their
villany, of course, arrives at the culminating point. It is from this
that the better Turks form such mean opinions of Europeans, and hence it
is a hard task to gain the respect or confidence of one of these.
Besides, in Alexandria and more especially in Cairo, and more or less in
many other cities of Egypt, Franks are to be found who have sought an
asylum there, and who are nothing but perfect adventurers. Every nation
has, indeed, its representatives here. The Greeks (Rumi), partly rayahs
(subjects), partly free, are doubtless the most numerous. That this
debased race can bring little advantage to any land is too true; and the
base character, especially of these Levant Greeks, is too well known,
for one to desire the presence of any of this most ungrateful and
faithless people.
Next to them the Italians are the most numerous, and their language is
the prevailing one all over the Levant. But Italy seems in truth to have
opened her brothels and houses of correction, and to have set her
galley-slaves at liberty, to aid in rendering Egypt’s people still more
rascally and corrupted. Only very few among the Italians can be counted
on as honest men; the most of them have been cast off by their country,
or compelled to fly from it for their crimes. We had many opportunities
of knowing well these Italians, as we were compelled to live, for a
considerable time, in close intercourse with many of them, and must
unfortunately express our conviction, that they are as false, cunning,
and overbearing, where they dare show it, as they are obsequious and
profuse of their friendships where this will gain them their ends. They
seem unable to live without intrigue, and they are sure to introduce
discord wherever they are suffered to interfere. Their grudges and
hatred they will keep concealed for many a year, feign friendship
towards those whose ruin they have sworn, until the hour of revenge has
come, and they find themselves certain of success. All means are right
to them, horrible or faithless as they may be, if they only lead to
their aim. One can never be enough on his guard with them; a single
word, rashly spoken, is enough for them, as from their own great
cunning, and their ever being on the look-out to cause the ruin of
others, they, agreeably to their innate characters, put the worst
construction on every thing, and turn it, as far as they can, to the
speaker’s detriment.
They are generally most moderate in their potations, chiefly from their
inborn stinginess, which often goes the length of miserliness; but in
eating, especially when they can feast at another’s expense, they prove
themselves real gluttons. Of the paste they call maccaroni they never
tire or can devour enough, and will gulp it down in quantities that a
German stomach, which is in general no very delicate one, would turn
away from in disgust. They also rejoice in all kinds of puddings, or
sweet dishes made with rice; but sweetmeats are their greatest delight,
and for these all of them, both old and young, would almost give their
souls. A plain soup they know not; theirs must be thickened with rice,
or with some kind of pastes. In Egypt most of the Italians are in office
of some kind, and unfortunately the greater part of them are mere
charlatans, totally without, or only with the smallest smattering of
education and science. All are conceited of their own persons, country,
and race, which they hold as the first in the world, and it is most
laughable to hear them brag and boast. They fancy they are still the
same people who formerly ruled the world; those from Venice and its
neighbourhood, still dream of the times of the Dorias and the glorious
republic. English, French, and Germans they despise; and if one tells
them of new or improved institutions in these countries, they defyingly
assert the idea was borrowed from Italy; or if this is too palpable a
falsehood even for them, then the thing is good for nothing. But the
main cause of their holding all other nations as stupid, is, that none
of the others will or can rival them in their baseness and wickedness.
Alas for their sweet language! only used by them as a covering for their
falsehood and faithlessness. Honour, honesty, or chivalrous courage, are
unknown to them; never do they confront their foe face to face, but lurk
for him in dark ambuscades, and only even then against the solitary and
defenceless, do they dare to use a weapon. They, whose country is the
toy of the great European powers, and which trembles if only a few
companies of Austrian soldiers appear in it, foster yet the high idea of
the future liberty and union of all Italy, and hope then to surpass the
Rome of old. But in the mean time they hate each other as the plague,
living ever among themselves in constant discord and strife. Among them,
that is, among the Italians themselves, the palm as conspirators and
intriguers is yielded to the Piedmontese, who are easily to be
distinguished from the others by the broadness and boorishness of their
dialect. A worthy representative of these is the apothecary Major,
Lumello, at Chartum, who, from being a billiard-marker in Alexandria,
raised himself by his serpentlike cunning to this post, and who
understands as much of chemistry, and compounding drugs, as one of our
peasants does of heraldry.
The number of the French here is much less than that of the two named
nations. They are jesters, boasters, and charlatans, as usual; their
every second word is “chez nous,” where all is better, more beautiful,
and more perfect than any where else. One may, indeed, call them _all_
adventurers; but still mean or rascally tricks are by no means common
among them, and their principal fault seems running into debt with their
hosts and all who trust them. Their main supports are Soliman Pascha
(the renegade, colonel Sivés) in Syria, and Clot Bey. The latter has had
high success here: formerly a poor doctor in Marseilles (I was
introduced to him in Marseilles in 1822, by Dieffenbach), he is here a
general. Ere he passed his forty-fifth year, he had, by his excesses, so
broken down his constitution, that he was not unlike a good pathological
preparation. Nothing but art and dress gave to the skeleton somewhat of
the look of a man; and he even now looks much more as if he belonged to
the noble craft of the needle, than to the high rank and office he
claims and holds, which is nothing less than, with the rank and pay of
general, President of the _Conseil Général de Santé_ in Egypt. With him
rests the promotion or advancement of the medical men and apothecaries:
that his countrymen get a good share of it is not at all unnatural, and
cannot well be otherwise, however much others may grumble at it. To
place his own small and mean person in a conspicuous light, Clot Bey
takes all possible means. In his great house, where his reception-
chambers are furnished in the European fashion, he receives his friends
with high patronising and protecting demeanour, doing all he can to
impress upon his subordinates a fitting respect for his dignity. Small
as are in truth his acquirements and medical information,—for his
dissipated career has reduced to nothing his earlier studies,—still he
acts the bold operator, and whatever his drugs may have done, his
favourite knife has been vigorously wielded, and more men have been
despatched by it to the other world, than he can ever answer for. In
spite of his many failures, his self-conceit and arrogance have never
for a moment left him. In his room stands a splendid library, in an
equally splendid and ever-locked bookcase, all in full parade order,
containing the ancient and later classics, and the most valuable works
on medical subjects; but all are new, and plainly show that they are
there as luxuries, which their possessor never uses, or perhaps, to
speak more truly, knows not how to use. The first visit I paid him was
in company with my brother; when we were perfectly astonished by the
childish questions of this high official, especially those as to the
famous and meritorious Professor Dieffenbach, of Berlin, with whom he
had in former days fallen in at Paris; and his opinion of this great
surgeon and operator seemed to sink much when he heard that he was
neither surgeon to the king, nor burdened by any titles of rank. Still
more laughable in my brother’s eyes was the fifteen minutes’ examination
which the Bey-General had _pro formâ_ to put him to. Before it he had
handed to him his doctor’s diploma, and, with the most serious face Clot
Bey set to work to try his hand on the Latin of the parchment, not one
word of which language, as all well knew, he understood. In the
examination, Joseph could not enter into his views either as to
lithotomy or operations for hydrocele, and he soon saw he would not find
a patron in the Bey. Once has Clot Bey revisited France in all pomp and
dignity, but the Marseilles fish and huxter women recognised their old
friend Clot, and treated him too unceremoniously. In Paris the little
man would have astonished a large company by a splendid speech, but the
language did not flow smoothly, and the meaning was not evident.
Observing this, he added, with dignity, “La longue habitude des langues
orientales m’empêche de m’exprimer avec plus de facilité;” but he might
have, with more truth, said, that, saving a little bad Arabic, he knew
nor spoke no oriental language, and that he never can speak with any
oriental, without the aid of his dragoman, although he has already been
for twelve years resident in Egypt. A young and rich dame met our hero
at a supper-party in Paris, and was so charmed by him, that she next day
made proposals of marriage to him, which he met only too eagerly. A
second meeting was agreed on, and Clot, the citizen of the world,
appeared in a Frank dress before this lady of gold. But oh,
misericordia! to behold him in this simple garb and break off all
marriage agreements was the work of one and the same moment to her.[24]
The metamorphosis from the picturesque Turkish costume, with its
Cashmere shawls, tarbush, diamond orders, &c., and perhaps a little red
artistically laid on the wasted cheek, seemed somewhat too sad, and
since then Clot has never adopted the Frank dress, nor should he, when
he would make a conquest.[25] In the theatre of Cairo one sees him
running from box to box, like a young dandy, and whispering soft
nothings, and ogling every lady he sees.
Spaniards are very rare in Egypt; but such as there are, are not in good
odour. Nor are the numbers of Englishmen large; they are little talked
of, nor shall I allude further to them; they are principally employed as
engineers, and in the factory or mine departments.
The educated Germans are few; but there is a considerable number of
mechanics from that country, and in these the nation seems to have
selected her worst specimens. They are all dissipated, without truth or
faith, and when one sees these louts, and hears of their rascally
tricks, one must blush to have a fatherland in common with them. Most of
them have, indeed, been compelled to fly their country, from their
villanous excesses or crimes; and have, to perfect themselves, taken
lessons in Hungary, Bucharest, and Constantinople, before coming to
Egypt and settling down in that land, fully accomplished in all the arts
of thieving, cheating, drinking, and blood-shedding.
Besides many Armenians, mostly shrewd merchants and Saraffs (bankers),
Mograbins, and Jews, there are to be found here individuals of all races
and countries under the sun.
The native population of Egypt are in general a set of cheats and
thieves; not the smallest faith or trust can be placed in any of them.
The genuine Turks hold the Turks of Egypt as the outcasts of their race.
Then, most of the great among the latter have in former times been
slaves, brought up under every degradation, and in the knowledge of
every low villany—to-day they are slaves, to-morrow they may be Bey or
Pascha; but for life they are slaves in mind and feeling, and only fear
of their power makes any one look on them as of higher grade than
themselves.
One would fancy that in Turkey, and especially in Constantinople, Franks
would be better protected and held in higher estimation than in distant
Egypt; but this is not so, as nowhere must a Frank be more cautious and
guarded than in Stamboul. To remedy this evil state of matters, and
particularly to confine this stupid and haughty race within the bounds
befitting it, would indeed be no hard task for the greater European
powers; but the policy of these towards the Porte is in direct
opposition to each other’s, and no united action can even be dreamt of
so long as each power acts for itself, and seeks eagerly in every way to
gain some small advantage for itself, even though this should be by
humiliating submissions; as it cares not how, so it only wins the
Porte’s favour. The latter power is allowed still to exist, only
because, as the common story runs, it is necessary for the balance of
Europe. But, in spite of this story, Turkey still is, as it ever has
been, and, from its splendid position, with justice ever will be, the
dearest desire of every naval power, and sooner or later it will prove a
bone of most bloody contention among these. The nation that possesses
the Dardanelles and Constantinople, is lord and master of the whole
Levant and Mediterranean trade; and what an inestimable advantage may
not this give? Russia, who for centuries has openly and secretly striven
with all its power, and by every political means, with unequalled
cunning and constancy, to gain this jewel, and even in its most involved
and disturbed states has never for a moment turned its eyes away from
this splendid aim, well comprehends its inestimable importance, and must
therefore venture all to become lord and master of this key-stone of its
maritime power, so as to be able to develop its naval forces, from its
own seas, into the south. If another power, England or France, possessed
the Straits of the Bosphorus, it would be impossible to open the passage
of them without its consent, even by force, and Russia with her
treasures would be confined to the Black and Caspian Seas, and for ever
long in vain for the trade of the south. How much importance Russia
places on the possession of the Dardanelles may be guessed, by the
expression of the Emperor Alexander at the Congress of Erfurt, where he
said to Napoleon, “I will give you the half of Europe, help you to
conquer it, and leave you in undisturbed possession of it; and you in
return must grant me the Dardanelles; they are the key of my house.”
In the suburbs of Constantinople, the Frank may take certain liberties
without being annoyed by the mob, if he only does not heed or trouble
himself about the repeated mention he hears, even there, of the word
Giour. But one had better not venture to intrude into the interior of
the old city, nor try to examine the architecture of the houses, or gaze
up at the closely latticed windows, if he would not be insulted and
perhaps attacked. The Frank who exhibits himself there in the dress of
his country, will, particularly in the more narrow streets, be greeted
with showers of stones and the contents of vessels not the most savoury,
followed all his way with the most horrible abuse, and even worse
handled by the mob; and still he dare not betake himself to his weapons,
or defend himself, for then from all houses would the Mussulmen rush,
and with cudgels and stones give the Giour a lesson after the Turkish
manner. I went one day—it was during the great plague of 1836-37—through
a certain street, in the neighbourhood of the Atmeidan, of that part of
the city, when a little Turkish lad was amusing himself and making the
bystanders merry by running after me, and amid shouts of laughter
knocking my hat off four or five times, ere I caught him by the neck;
and the instant I did so, many Turks rushed on me, and I dared not
punish the young scamp, as I had no wish to be cudgelled to death in
return. Such insults to Franks are the order of the day, and no
ambassador will trouble himself about them. Even they themselves, though
the representatives of monarchs, are, like all common persons, obliged
to dismount from their horses, go on foot with closed umbrella and
divested of their cloaks, should they pass the palace of the Sultan, and
this not only when directly in front of it, but some hundred paces
before or behind it: like formalities are gone through when one sails by
it on the Bosphorus. It is, indeed, very curious, that the ambassadors
have not taken suitable measures long ago against these ceremonies, so
truly degrading and derogatory to their office. What European monarch
would dare issue such orders? Besides, it is all the same whether the
Sultan is in his palace or not; before the mere ungainly pile of stones
must every one submit to such humiliations, or be taken prisoner by the
guard, and locked up under insults and abuse. It is perfectly à la
Gessler! As the common vulgar here know how, in case of necessity, to
take their revenge by means of fire, which here (as the most of the
houses are either all or mostly of wood) makes rapid and fearful
devastations, so do the mob in uniforms insist, with brutal severity, on
the observance of public orders. One evening Prince Wrede, with a small
party (in jovial humour, from the grape), was returning home, but
unfortunately without lanterns, which is forbidden. All at once the
watch pounced upon him and his companions, and, with blows, dragged them
to the prison of Woiwodin, placed them in a dungeon that not only
already contained numbers of the vilest of the mob, but was so small
that they had to stand the whole night; neither their names and rank,
nor threats, nor prayers, enabled them to send to their ambassador, or
release them out of this unpleasant scrape; nor afterwards, much as they
complained to their country’s envoy of such disgraceful treatment, and
the time and money it had cost them, did they get the smallest redress.
In Egypt, indeed, one must also constantly carry a lantern with him
after dark, and in the month of the Ramadan, one may chance to be taken
up by the guard; but these are so civil, as to at once let the prisoners
go again for a few piastres, or at worst some cigars; or if they will
not do so, you have only to send to the consul, and you are at once set
at liberty. It is common enough to forget this lantern, the more so when
one goes out by day and does not return till evening; but at every
street corner, if not very late indeed, paper lanterns are to be had for
half a piastre. In consequence of this constant forgetting of lanterns,
one at last has a complete store of such in his house; at Cairo, on
counting ours, we found some fifty. The small wax tapers for them, with
which we could go from the Muske (Frank quarter) to our own homes, on
the Esbekieh, cost five paras. These neat light-machines consist of
folded paper, and it needs custom and gentle handling to convey them
home, for should the wind blow a little fresh, or if the body reels a
little from wine, one is every moment in danger of setting on fire the
paper lantern, as well as oneself,—an accident by no means rare,
especially when one wears the long and loose Turkish dress. This, or the
Frank costume, one may wear as he pleases in Egypt; but not so in
Turkey. There the Frank must wear the Frank dress, and the Turk that
prescribed for his station. The rayah may certainly wear Frank clothes,
but not without the tarbush, on which, in sign of being a subject, the
Turkish crescent, cut out of cloth, is sewed.
* * * * *
CHAP. IX.
Circassians and Georgians. — Dress of the Sheiks. — Turkish Etiquette. —
Arab Officers and Soldiers. — An Arab Regiment. — Black Soldiery.
At our last interview with the Pascha, he, who still with deep affection
remembers his native country, Circassia, asked us if we knew anything
new of the war between it and Russia; and listened again with much
pleasure to our often-told tale. In Constantinople one must be on his
guard how he talks of Russia’s successes over the Turks; the people in
general believe that the Russians have constantly been beaten—and, from
the medals which the Emperor of Russia, to make himself popular, has
presented to all the Turkish soldiers engaged in the campaigns, they are
led to believe that the Sultan had forced the conquered Emperor to give
them those medals. As little as by the Turks, are the Russians loved in
Egypt, for here there are many Circassians, whose fury and hatred
against them is more and more inflamed by Russia’s unceasing attempts to
subdue their native land. These, as a matter of course, relate the great
deeds of their countrymen, by whose bravery all Russia’s attacks are
rendered vain, and never, they assert and believe, will she succeed in
winning Circassia. However little the Circassians here may have
otherwise to brag of, nay, although they are capable of all kinds of
mean and vicious acts, still all possess strong love for, and the
warmest interest in, their native country, and their countrymen
(achuan); and this is the more to be admired, as they all have been,
when in tenderest age, brought as slaves into Egypt and Turkey. Now,
too, hardly any of them have much remembrance of their country, and few
speak its language, which they can only keep up by conversation with the
many female Circassian slaves in their harems. Achmet Pascha himself was
stolen from his native land when only six years old. These tribes either
mutually rob one another of children and grown-up girls to sell as
slaves, or the parents educate their daughters in all accomplishments,
filling their heads with tales of the splendour and magnificence of the
harem, and then sell them, often under the impression that by so doing
they prepare for them and themselves a better lot. The girls themselves
are satisfied; they dream of the pleasures of being mistress of a harem,
and of seeing all their desires satisfied, especially in dress and
ornaments.